The best typesetting systems, according to hackers
12 typesetting systems were recommended on Hacker News between November 2025 and November 2026. We rank them by how many separate people recommend each one, and 4 earn the Hacker Approved badge.
Top picks
The three most recommended typesetting systems with the badge. Each figure is 10 people. RecommendsCriticizes One comment
Much nicer than LaTeX
A modern LaTeX alternative with saner syntax, built-in scripting and fast compilation that makes programmatic PDF generation easy; HTML output is still experimental and the ecosystem is smaller.
Typesetting quality still unbeaten
Free typesetting system praised for unmatched typesetting quality and stability, especially for mathematics; the language is widely criticized as hard to program.
Renders many output formats from one source
Recommended for turning Markdown and code into documents, websites, slides and books, but critics say it still has rough edges.
All 12 typesetting systems, ranked
Select a column heading to sort. Approval share is recommenders out of everyone who gave an opinion; the tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs. Months counts the months, out of 13, in which someone recommended it.
| Rank | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Typst | 205 | 31 | 87% | 13 | 1 yr16 owners | Approved |
| 2 | LaTeX | 137 | 82 | 63% | 12 | 20 yrs4 owners | — |
| Tied 3 | TeX | 27 | 12 | 69% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Tied 3 | Quarto | 27 | 5 | 84% | 9 | — | Approved |
| 5 | TeXmacs | 19 | 8 | 70% | 9 | — | Approved |
| 6 | TeX Live | 10 | 3 | 77% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 7 | Tectonic LaTeX engine | 8 | 1 | 89% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 7 | troff | 8 | 2 | 80% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 9 | ConTeXt | 7 | 2 | 78% | 8 | — | — |
| Tied 9 | groff | 7 | 1 | 88% | 7 | — | — |
| 11 | XeLaTeX | 6 | 1 | 86% | 4 | — | — |
| 12 | LuaLaTeX | 5 | 3 | 63% | 5 | — | — |
How we rank
Rank is the number of separate people who recommend a product in a Hacker News comment over the past year. Someone who praises the same typesetting system in five threads counts once.
The badge goes to typesetting systems that at least 10 people recommend, with recommenders outnumbering critics at least 2 to 1, recommended in at least 4 of the 13 months.
Rankings are never for sale. We may earn a commission when you buy through our links. It never changes the order.